Clean Freaks

Domestically speaking, I’m a tidy guy. I make the bed.
I hang up clothes. I take out the garbage. I put newspapers in the newspaper rack and books on the bookshelf. I even use an aesthetically pleasing pyramid approach to stacking up mail, with magazines and catalogs on the bottom, postcards and other direct mail pieces in the middle and bills and letters on top. Hey, there’s a right way and there’s a wrong way.

Based on my proclivity for putting things in their place, you might assume that my house would be a pristine environment where visitors take their shoes off at the door and receive a list of do’s and don’ts to follow while inside.  Not exactly. If you want to dig up some dirt on me, here’s my dark secret in a silver dust bin: my tidy streak comes to a screeching halt when it’s time to actually clean anything.

Fortunately, others step in to sweep my shortcomings under the rug. In fact, every other Friday a white van pulls into our driveway and two non-English-speaking women come into our house and clean it for us. They dust shelves. They vacuum the carpet. They mop the floors. They even scrub the tub and toilets.

I must admit that this biweekly phenomenon is no small wonder to me. It’s our home. It’s our mess. It’s no one’s concern but our own. Yet every two weeks these women appear out of nowhere and relieve us from facing the four horsemen of the housekeeping apocalypse – dirt, hair, crumbs and mold. The crumbs are mostly mine, the hair is mostly my wife’s, and the dirt and mold are something our house produces to let us know that it’s not just sitting around all day doing nothing. When it all reaches critical mass, in swoop the cleaning ladies to restore hygiene and harmony.

Before you get the wrong idea though, having a cleaning service isn’t all blue toilet water and bliss. Certain things must be understood as “part of the package” when you hire strangers to come into your home and busy themselves wiping away all your unspeakable filth. You need to accept with tolerance and grace the following facts of outsourcing your housecleaning.

1.) They won’t clean your home like you do. No one cares about your home as much as you. The pride, sweat and attention you put into cleaning it is something a stranger could never begin to match.  Of course, the fact that you only clean it once a month when you have company coming over gives you a distinct motivational edge.

The thing to remember is, whenever possible, give your cleaning people the benefit of the doubt. But when glaring lapses in service are clearly visible, promptly report them and insist on satisfaction.  Such signs of shoddy service include the rotting remains of a quesadilla you had three weeks ago still clinging to the edge of the coffee table. Or a dust ball that knocks over pets and small children.

2.) They will break things. Time is money and house cleaners move fast to keep that profit margin looking spiffy. This creates a situation where innocent bystanders – in this case, the contents of your home – can meet with an untimely demise. Cleaning day casualties at our house have included shower and closet bypass doors, Venetian blinds, glass candle holders, and ceiling fans.

Our ceiling fan damage is a recurring problem that stirs the imagination. Every couple of months my wife and I will return home after a cleaning and find a paddle blade snapped off from the fan’s motor housing and left lying on the floor in the guest bedroom. After this happened the second time, I developed a theory. Picture if you will a cleaning woman climbing up on a bed to feather dust some paddle fan blades. In her zeal to dislodge the disease-causing particles, she loses her balance, instinctively reaching out and grabbing one of the blades to keep from plummeting to the floor some three feet below. The blade snaps, but eases her gently to the carpet, shaken but uninjured. Which brings me to my third and final reality check about hiring a cleaning service.

3.) You will become pitifully dependent on them. To make sure the cleaning people keep coming back, you will pay them good money on a regular basis. This is money you could otherwise spend on things like clothing, entertainment or travel. But, as my wife and I have come to believe, the material rewards of life are nothing compared to the joys of coming home to a perky carpet, a gleaming crapper and the intoxicating smell of lemon scented furniture polish.

Plus, it comforts us to know that with each broken paddle fan blade, a life is saved.